I love the Art Institute of Chicago. I feel like it's MY art gallery and I can walk around and look at all the cool paintings that I have. I stroll up the stairs, through the glass door and down the hall to my George Seurat I have hanging down there, past my Modiglianies and Monets...I love seeing the real deal because you learn so much more about the painting. American Gothic for example, when looked in real life, the details that you can see in this painting are amazing. I love the pattern on her pullover apron, I love the blue blind rolled up on the side porch. I love the gleam on the pitchfork.
Yesterday, I found out something I never knew before. I knew that the man was actually Grant Woods dentist and I knew that that was his sister... but what I didn't know was that he was depicting a farmer and his unwed DAUGHTER. I always thought that that was his wife.
The detail in the window curtains is neat to see in real life too. Amazing detail even when getting in very close. What an illustrator this man was. I say illustrator because like Norman Rockwell, this is what he is doing, presenting a photographic depiction. Although as I type this and think about art, I realize that the art in the piece are the plants behind the woman representing her job as domestic upkeeper, bringing life to the home and the farmer with his pitchfork, representing the worker, the toiler of the soil. But why did Wood choose to paint a Farmer and his daughter? He also has them in old fashioned clothing even for 1930. The Farmer looks kind of pissed and the woman, the daughter looks worried. Is he pissed that he wasn't able to marry her off? Or is he standing determined to never let her go? Is her expression an expression of hoping her father keeps her safe and sound or that she will never be able to escape? The art... it's all in YOUR head. That's what makes it art, the fact that it provokes.
I think that we all have the ability to choose what we think is art and what we think isn't art. It's what it does to you and how it makes you feel. And it's a living thing. For example, whenever I visit the Seurat painting, sometimes it is vibrant and other times, it looks dull and over exposed. Sometimes I am in tears over the Monet paintings and sometimes it's just a bunch of mooshed up colors. American Gothic, perhaps because I had not seen it in awhile, was very special yesterday. It's like seeing a celebrity. You walk into the room and spy it in the corner. There it is, waiting for you to spend time with it. The more famous paintings have people drawn around them. Paint on a canvas with the energy to draw people to it. It's magical. What did the artist do to create something that would do this? It's letting down your guard and just letting it happen. Simplicity. A blank canvas turns into a painting when the artist get's out of the way.
I love the Art Institute.